


mean something (anything)

by butterflysky



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (not really) - Freeform, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Hydra (Marvel), Infinity War spoilers, M/M, Mentions of canon character death, Pining, Post-Infinity War, Some Non-Graphic Violence, Unrequited Love, also mentions of canon violence/torture, bucky is hopelessly In Love, characters apart from steve bucky and sam are just mentioned, just a good ol' fashioned stucky pining fic tbh, lots of pining, mention of peggy/steve and sharon/steve, slight misunderstanding in a sexual encounter? maybe, steve has some body image issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 14:33:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14917155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflysky/pseuds/butterflysky
Summary: It’s been three months since the Avengers saved the universe from Thanos, and while the world is starting to put itself back together, Bucky is finding it hard. He’s done this before, of course — came back to himself after a long period of absence, had to rediscover who he was, how to live with a new weight to carry. Only this time, it feels different.(Bucky has loved Steve for a long time, and the aftermath of Thanos makes it harder to ignore - especially when they're alone on a mission together.)





	mean something (anything)

When Bucky thinks of the war, he remembers smoke, the bright white-blue flash of Hydra’s weapons, sweat prickling along his scalp under his helmet, the weight of a gun in his hands, the cold hardness of a metal table underneath him and the sharp sting of pain in his head. Steve’s face hovering over him, twisted with worry. Steve’s hands helping him up, warm and soft through the thin fabric of his shirt. Steve’s fond smile in the warm lighting of a bar. Steve steady at his side through every mission. Steve shouting _no_ as he fell through the cold, cold air. 

Bucky tries not to think of the war.

Sometimes it’s unavoidable, like when they discover an abandoned Hydra facility in the middle of nowhere, and Steve, with a wry curl to his mouth, says, “Just like old times, huh?”

Bucky busies himself with dousing the whole place in gasoline and thinks it’s nothing like before, that nothing can ever be like that again, that he’s changed far too much — done too much and had too much done to him — for anything to ever feel the same. He doesn’t tell Steve this.

It’s been three months since the Avengers saved the universe from Thanos, and while the world is starting to put itself back together, Bucky is finding it hard. He’s done this before, of course — came back to himself after a long period of absence, had to rediscover who he was, how to live with a new weight to carry. Only this time, it feels different.

He’d been _gone,_ and then he’d woke up lying on the ground in Wakanda, still feeling fragile and breakable until Steve’s head had blocked out the sun above him. It’d felt familiar, achingly so, but still not the _same,_ never the same.

“Bucky?” Steve had said, bent over him, face open and hopeful but still scared, still _fragile._

“Yeah,” he’d said, dazed on the ground. “It’s me.”

They’d found Sam hidden behind some trees. He’d been patting himself down, like he was checking he wasn’t about to crumble away all over again, and when he’d seen them, his expression had broken from faint wonder to shock.

“What the hell happened?” Sam had asked, and Steve’d explained. It all came down to the Time Stone, and a lot of time travel, and some people Bucky had never heard of but who Steve seemed to be on good terms with. Bucky found he didn’t really care about the particulars, as long as they were all alive. And they _were_ all alive. Bucky didn’t realise till that moment, with the Avengers intact, that he’d faced the hoard of attacking aliens in Wakanda and expected some of their own to die. It was the same in the war — every new battle brought new fears, and he’d found himself lying awake on scratchy fabric, hand curled round his dog tags, desperately hoping they’d all survive the next day but knowing they wouldn’t. When he’d become a Howling Commando, that feeling had eased. He’d thought they were untouchable. It’s a cruel irony, he thinks, that _he_ was the only one to fall.

“We made it,” Sam’d said, and pulled his goggles off, dropped them to the ground, sat down heavily next to them a moment later. “We actually made it.”

 _We actually made it_ kept echoing through Bucky’s head for the next few weeks, like his subconscious was trying to convince him to believe it. He was used to that feeling of disbelief, that he’d come through something unscathed enough to live afterwards — and he’d been through a _lot,_ and carries the scars inside and out to prove it — but this time feels different. Maybe because, for the first time, he’d died for real. For the first time, he’d really been _gone._

Steve seems to recognise the unease still echoing through him. Even as they go out on missions together, get rid of what’s left of Hydra and whatever new horror is rearing its head these days, Steve keeps an eye on him. He’s not sure if Steve is _worrying_ about him, exactly, but he seems more vigilant. It’s a strange role reversal that Bucky is still adjusting to.

It’s almost three months to the day since he’d come back that Steve appears in his bedroom doorway, looking hesitant.

Bucky shuts his book. “What?”

“Nat’s been tracking an arms dealer for a while,” Steve says. “She’s got a lead we can follow up for her, if you want.”

Bucky considers it. “Hydra?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and Bucky lays his book neatly on the bedside table.

“I’m in.”

 

 

Bucky finds out the mission is just for the two of them when he arrives at the car the next morning. His stomach kind of shudders, and he does his best to ignore it.

“Where’s Sam?” he asks, as casually as he can manage.

“He’s busy,” Steve says. “He’s on a mission with Wanda and Clint, I think.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, and sits silently in the front.

He tries to avoid being alone with Steve now, when he can. Thanos, the snap, it changed something in their relationship. There’d been a time where he was happy, content, with what they'd had after Steve had found him again in Bucharest. But _dying,_ and coming back, it’d adjusted his perspective. The same thing had happened in the war, when he’d stared up at the ceiling of the dingy room Zola kept him in and thought of his family, and how they’d never find out what’d happened to him, and then thought of Steve, and how he was going to die (or worse) without ever getting the words out.

And then, when Steve had found him, he hadn’t been able to even _find_ the words. He’d sat alone in the bar, thinking, thinking, not wanting to ruin anything but not wanting to keep it hidden any longer. And then he’d seen Peggy, and the way Steve and Peggy looked at each other, and sealed his mouth shut.

There’s another reason he tries not to think of the war. It’s a memory, one he keeps tucked away, one he sneaks a look at whenever he feels he can stand it. He remembers sitting in his tent, the one he shared with Steve, cleaning his gun with shaking hands. The gun had been balanced across his lap, and Steve had taken it away gently, his fingertips brushing the fabric of Bucky’s trousers, and he’d sucked in a gasp that Steve had heard.

“You okay?” Steve'd asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky had said, voice hoarse. It was a lie — whatever Zola had done to him, it’d made him _not okay._ He wasn’t sure he’d ever be okay again. And he’d spent the night watching Steve laugh with the other Commandos, their campfire lighting him gold, colour rising in his cheeks, his smile brilliant, and Bucky’s heart ached with _want._

“You don’t seem it,” Steve had said, and then he’d crouched to set the gun on the ground and turned to face him. Bucky'd been breathing hard, his chest rising and falling fast, and Steve had put his hands on his knees and squeezed softly. “Talk to me,” he’d murmured, and Bucky had looked down at him, at the wideness of his eyes and the faint colour to his cheeks, and shut his eyes.

“Can’t,” he’d said (croaked).

“Is it…” Steve’s hands were still on his knees. He’d glanced up at him, then slid his hands higher, up to his thighs, and Bucky had shut his eyes tighter. “Do you…want this?” Steve asked, quietly, and Bucky, jaw clenched, nodded once. _Yes_ he wanted this, wanted _him,_ had since he was twenty one, sharing their apartment, when Steve had laid his sketchbook out on the box serving as their table and started idly sketching, and the setting sun streaming through the window had hit his face just so and Bucky had thought, _oh._

“Okay,” Steve said, still quiet, and his hands had moved to the zip of Bucky’s trousers.

Bucky remembers his head tipping back against the tent canvas, eyes still shut, hands in Steve’s soft, soft hair, and he remembers, afterwards, Steve leaning back and whispering, “It doesn’t have to mean anything, Buck.”

He remembers how cold he’d felt, how the words had died on his tongue, how he’d pushed a smile onto his face and nodded and how they’d never spoken of it again.

Bucky had been happy just to be near Steve, once. But not anymore.Not after dying without telling him the truth _again._

“Nat says the arms dealer is meeting Hydra next week,” Steve says, and Bucky forces himself back to the present, puts the memory away in the back corner of his mind again. “We’ll intercept.”

“Got it,” Bucky says, and turns his head to look out the window.

He can feel Steve’s eyes on him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, tone careful.

“We’ve nearly got all of Hydra,” Steve says. “We won’t have to do this for much longer.”

Bucky thinks of no more missions with Steve, and he feels heavy and light at the same time. It’s better this way, he thinks. Better if he and Steve only see each other around the apartment, with Sam there too, and if Steve tries again with Sharon, and Bucky…well, he’ll figure it out.

It’ll hurt less, he thinks.

“Good,” Bucky says, and reaches to turn the radio on.

 

 

They’re staying in a motel near the meeting site, and the first thing Bucky does is drop his bag and lay down flat on his bed. Its uncomfortable enough that he might as well sleep on the floor. 

Steve throws himself onto his bed hard enough that he bounces about a foot in the air.

“Your bed looks comfier than mine,” Bucky complains, and Steve grins at him.

“We can arm wrestle for it,” Steve says, lying down, now, head turned on his pillow to look at Bucky.

“I’d win,” Bucky says, and waves his metal arm at him. He can’t quite look straight at him.

“Wanna bet?” Steve says, and Bucky knows that stubborn tone of voice well enough that he groans.

“ _No,_ Steve, I do not want to bet,” he says. “I want to sleep. Goodnight.”

“Spoilsport,” Steve huffs, but clicks the light off without another word.

 

 

The arms dealer isn’t particularly subtle — they find him easily, and spend most of the day watching him. Steve takes note of the hired muscle while Bucky catalogues exactly what kind of body armour they’re wearing under their suits. It’s easy, simple as ever, and Bucky is always quietly surprised to find they still make a perfect team. It’s another thing that’s changed, but not so much that it’s unrecognisable. He likes it, when it isn’t making his heart ache. 

They set up a camera to watch the house, then Steve whispers, “I’m starving, can we get pizza?” and they head to the take out place closest to their motel. It falls to Bucky to get food for them on every mission, because people are less likely to recognise him than Captain America. Still, he puts his hat on and tries to avoid looking the cashier in the eye when he can.

Steve throws both pizza boxes onto his bed, ignores Bucky yelling, “You’re gonna get grease all over the cover!”, and sits up by the headboard.

“I think we should split these fifty-fifty,” Steve says. “I want half of yours.”

“Then you should’ve ordered mine,” Bucky says, but starts dividing his pizza anyway. Steve’s watching him, and he tries to ignore it. His hands go unsteady. It’s so much easier when there are other people around — whenever it’s just him and Steve, it’s like his feelings are simmering under his skin, and he can’t ignore them no matter how hard he tries (and he _tries,_ because this isn’t something he’ll ever be allowed to have).

“Are you sure you’re okay, Buck?” Steve asks, low, quiet, and Bucky doesn’t look up.

“Sure I am,” Bucky says, and nudges half the pizza in Steve’s direction. “You asked for it, you better eat it all.”

“Bucky,” Steve says. “Look at me.”

Bucky, slowly, lifts his eyes to his. They’re so very blue.

“You can talk to me,” Steve says, still quiet, _hurt,_ now. “I’m your best friend.”

And that’s the problem, Bucky thinks, but all he says is, “I know, Stevie.”

Steve keeps on looking at him, and Bucky can feel the words crowding onto his tongue but he can’t _say them,_ not now, not when they have the rest of the week together and he can’t _ruin it,_ can’t do anything to make Steve stop thinking of him as his _best friend._

A buzzing from the table makes them both look away.

“My phone,” Steve says, and he sounds frustrated. He gets up, grabs his phone, and says, “It’s Nat. The meeting’s been moved. Two days earlier.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, and he’s silently relieved. He does his best to eat a slice of pizza. “Same time?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and throws his phone back to the table. He looks back over at Bucky, hands on his hips. He opens his mouth, then shuts it again.

“Your pizza’s getting cold,” Bucky says, and Steve’s arms drop to his sides.

They don’t talk about anything important for the rest of the night, and Bucky feels himself start to relax, starts to feel the weight on him ease. If it was always like this, he thinks, he could almost be happy.

 

 

They watch the arms dealer again, find his routine is unchanged, and Bucky is about to suggest they just take him out now when they see Hydra personnel show up. It’s nothing too unexpected, but it’s enough that Bucky feels uneasy.

“They’re ahead of schedule,” Steve says, and Bucky nods. “We should stay overnight.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. They’re on a roof, open to the sky, and they’ve got nothing with them that’ll make sleeping comfortable. They’ve been in worse conditions, Bucky thinks, with the twist to his stomach that always comes with thinking of _before._

“Wish I’d brought my sleeping bag,” Steve says, and Bucky laughs, just slightly.

“You got the comfy bed, suck it up, Rogers,” Bucky says, and readjusts his rifle against the roof’s edge. It _is_ familiar, laying flat, up high, looking through the scope of a sniper rifle. But it’s familiar from the war _and_ from being the Winter Soldier, and that’s the kind of familiar that makes him feel sick.

Steve is watching him, Bucky can tell. He moves his rifle again, even though it’s perfectly positioned, just for something to do.

“You can take the bed if you want, Buck,” Steve says, after a moment.

Bucky addresses his words to his rifle. “I don’t want your bed. You keep it.”

There’s a pause, and then Steve lies beside him. Bucky stiffens.

“Remember that time Dugan fell asleep on watch, and when we woke up an animal had gotten into our packs and you had to walk miles looking for your coat?” Steve says, and he’s leaning close enough that his breath brushes Bucky’s neck and Bucky shivers.

“I remember,” Bucky says. “And I remember you telling me not to be angry with him because he was tired.”

“I only said that because you wouldn’t stop _complaining,_ God,” Steve says. “Just,  _ugh Steve you don't understand I love that coat_ this and _I’m not gonna find one warm enough for another three towns_ that.”

“I _did_ love that coat,” Bucky mutters.

The past tense throws Steve off, he can tell. He can practically hear Steve’s brain recalibrating, can sense him reaching for another memory that can only be looked on with happiness. They don’t have many of those.

“Hey,” Bucky says, because he doesn’t want Steve sad, that’s the last thing he wants, “I remember you complaining non-stop when you tore your shirt playing baseball with me.”

“It was brand new!” Steve says, indignant, and Bucky laughs quietly.

“Stevie, I’ve heard this speech before.”

“ _You_ were upset when I used all your Brylcreem,” Steve says, and Bucky feels the exact same irritation he felt seventy years ago rising again.

“Because you didn’t _ask me first!_ ”

“Wait,” Steve says, and Bucky’s attention snaps back to the house in front of them. The dealer is outside, smoking, not looking in their direction. They watch silently, unmoving, until he goes back inside. They both relax at the same time.

“It didn’t suit me anyway,” Steve says, and Bucky snorts.

“It did,” he says, and then swallows, looks away.

“You always had your hair so cool,” Steve says, wistful. “I was jealous.”

“Is this your way of telling me it looks bad now?” Bucky asks, around the feeling of his heart in his throat. 

Steve laughs, quiet. “No, Buck, it looks really good now too. I like it long.”

Bucky can feel himself going red, and he’s glad it’s dark. “Thanks.” He clears his throat. “You always…you always looked nice, Steve. You gotta know that.”

“After the serum, maybe,” Steve says, and Bucky _hates_ the self-deprecating tone, hates that Steve never saw what he saw and still doesn’t.

“No, before, too,” Bucky says. “You…you’ve always…” He still can’t find the words. He wants to say _you’ve always been beautiful,_ but it’s too much for a _best friend,_ too much even for them, so he settles on saying, “You’ve always looked nice.” because it’s the best he can manage.

Steve is silent for a moment, then he says, voice very soft, “Thank you, Buck.”

Bucky is blushing now, he can feel the heat in his cheeks, so he keeps his gaze fixed on the house in front of them and tries to think about anything but Steve.

“You know,” Steve says, still very quiet, and Bucky tenses, he can’t help it. “I always thought you looked nice, too.”

Bucky swallows, hard. “Yeah?” he says, because he can’t help himself, he’s wanted for _so long,_ surely he can push just a bit harder this once?

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Always.”

Bucky turns his head to look at him, and Steve looks back, and their faces are _so close_ and Steve’s eyes are so bright in the darkness, and Bucky _wants,_ he really, really wants to lean closer.

And then a car pulls up outside the house, and their heads both snap forward, and they watch as four men climb from the car as the front door opens and the dealer strides outside with a briefcase and his men.

“It’s happening _tonight,_ ” Steve says, as Bucky says, “ _Go!_ ”

And it _is_ like old times, as Steve jumps and throws his shield and knocks out three of them at once, catches the shield as it bounces from the car, and Bucky shoots the dealer in the leg before he can run. Steve makes short work of the others, then grabs the briefcase, gives Bucky a thumbs up, and Bucky radios in their backup.

It’s over quickly — the newly reformed SHIELD arrives, takes the briefcase and arrests the men, then one of the agents turns to them and asks what they’ll do now, and Steve replies, easily, “We’ll head back to the motel.”

 _We will?_ Bucky thinks, but he’s not going to argue.

They walk back down the middle of the road in silence for a while, Steve with his shield strapped to his back, Bucky with his rifle. They must make a pretty funny picture, Bucky thinks, if anyone looks out their window to see them. The symbol and the gun, the way it’s always been. Maybe nothing really has changed.

Steve’s hand bumps his, and he thinks about curling his fingers round it before he moves his own away, acts like he has to adjust his rifle on his back. Steve doesn’t say anything.

When they get back, Steve shuts the door behind them both, props his shield up against the wall, then turns to look at him. They hold each other's eyes for a long moment, then Steve says, “You remember…”

Bucky waits. Neither of them have turned the lights on yet, and the streetlights from outside are filtering in through the window blinds. It makes everything seem hazy. “Remember what?” Bucky says, when he can't stand it any longer.

Steve looks at him, then looks down, away. Bucky sees the moment he clenches his jaw, steels himself, and waits some more. Steve takes a few steps forward, closes the gap between them, then very deliberately puts his hands on Bucky’s belt buckle.

“I told you it didn’t have to mean anything,” he murmurs, face so close to his again, voice so deep, eyes half lidded. “If you want.”

Bucky catches his wrist. He can’t do this anymore, he _can’t._ “What if.” He can’t, _he can’t,_ but he has to, so he says, “What if I…I want it to. I want it to mean something. What then?”

Steve sucks in a shuddering breath, and says, “Then I’d—I’d be happy.”

Bucky’s breath stops in his throat. “You—you’d be—”

“I didn’t,” Steve says, shuts his eyes, leans his forehead against Bucky’s. “I didn’t think you wanted it to mean anything.”

Bucky puts his hands on Steve’s shoulders, leans him back just far enough that he can look him in the eye. “Steve—”

He still can’t find the words, but it doesn’t matter, because Steve pulls him closer and fits their mouths together, and for a second Bucky can’t move, can’t register anything but the feeling of Steve warm beneath his fingers and the feel of his lips soft against his, and then the moment breaks and he makes a high sound in the back of his throat and puts his hand to Steve’s cheek, shuts his eyes, kisses him back. 

It’s better than he ever let himself imagine, because it’s more _real_ — Steve really breathes in sharp when Bucky’s thumb brushes his cheek, really puts his arm round his waist and pulls him in closer, really tilts his head to kiss him deeper. He _wants it_ as much as Bucky does, and it gives him such a rush that he can feel himself touching Steve more desperately, kissing him harder, because it’s _real_ and he can’t quite believe it.

Steve breaks away, breathing hard, cheeks flushed and hair mussed, and says, “After—After Thanos, I couldn’t stand it—I still hadn’t told you and you were gone—”

Bucky laughs, presses their foreheads back together. He knows what Steve is trying to say. “Yeah? Me too. Every single time, in Azzano and on the train and in Wakanda.”

He feels Steve smile. “I guess some things never change.”

Bucky leans back in, brings their mouths back together, kisses him for so long he almost forgets what he was going to say until he leans back, looks at him, smile tugging at his mouth, and says, “Nah, some things do."

**Author's Note:**

> this is the outcome of listening to Sleepover by Hayley Kiyoko on repeat 
> 
> i hoped you liked!! as always kudos & comments are v appreciated


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